In the elusive dream of the automated home, visitors ring a doorbell, and it buzzes the homeowner's mobile phone. Lawn sprinklers take rainy days off. At bedtime, lights turn off by themselves, and the temperature drops to save energy. In the morning, families awake to the smell of freshly brewed coffee.

Microsoft and Cisco Systems, as well as smaller companies such as Xanboo and Life|ware, have for years touted the benefits of this seemingly inevitable future and tried to position their products at the center of the connected home. So far, they haven't given consumers a reason to pay more just to avoid walking across a room to shut off a light. And, save coffee machines, they haven't devised systems simple enough for the technically challenged.

SmartThings of Reston, Va., intends to finally bring the future into 21st century homes. It's selling kits with moisture sensors, power outlets and motion detectors that turn previously dumb appliances such as fans and garage door openers into Internet-connected devices that can be controlled using the company's smartphone apps.

New class of appliances

SmartThings is also trying to create the dominant platform for such devices, providing free open-source software tools to developers and hackers, in the hope they'll find additional uses that will appeal to consumers. The goal is to connect appliances to each other, to the Web and to their owners.

"All of these Jetsons scenarios that people have envisioned over the years are finally possible," said Alex Hawkinson, 40, the company's chief executive officer.

According to home-automation companies' visions over the years, devices would be controlled through cable boxes, Windows PCs or Wi-Fi routers. But many of these systems were complicated and required either advanced coding skills or third-party installers to set up.

SmartThings raised $1.2 million on Kickstarter, the crowdfunding site, last summer. The growing community of hardware hackers, who have come up with many do-it-yourself home-automation projects in the past, was drawn to the idea of an open software platform that could be used to build a new class of connected appliances. In December, the 30-employee company announced it had raised $3 million in seed funding from venture capital firm First Round Capital and prominent angel investors including Facebook-backer Yuri Milner and actor Ashton Kutcher.

Convincing consumers

The idea for SmartThings came to Hawkinson in late 2010 on a visit to his family's vacation home in Colorado. He arrived to find the electricity was out and the water pipes had burst. By the next year, he was building prototypes of Internet-connected power outlets and moisture sensors.

The company still faces a chicken-and-egg problem. It can't get developers and appliance makers to embrace the SmartThings standards without a critical mass of consumers using devices that take advantage of home-networking technology. And consumers won't get on board unless cheap, simple and appealing devices such as Internet-connected security cameras, alarm systems and thermostats are already available.

To seed the market, the company recently started shipping kits to its Kickstarter contributors. The kits let users connect their house lights to their home network so they can control them with their phones. It also comes with a motion detector that doubles as a burglar alarm and a moisture sensor that can alert an owner when the basement floods.

The $299 kits include a small piece of hardware, the SmartThings hub, that connects to the customer's wireless router and serves as the radio base station for all of these devices. The company plans to make money selling the kits on its website and, down the road, will take a fee from companies that sell devices using SmartThings software.

High price questioned

The high price for consumers is one reason some analysts question the viability of home-automation systems. "Smart-home products often compete with not as smart, but much cheaper, alternatives," said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research.

SmartThings is also entering a market in which one company, thermostat maker Nest Labs, co-founded by former Apple executive Tony Fadell, has recently garnered considerable attention. The Nest Learning Thermostat, which adapts to its owners' daily routines, is one of the best-selling accessories in Apple stores despite its $250 price tag.

SmartThings' approach - bringing Internet smarts into any device in the home - contrasts sharply with Nest's strategy of focusing on a single product. But it hopes hackers can help deliver life-changing experiences.

Hawkinson has heard from one developer building an add-on tool that uses SmartThings' software to connect the Fitbit wearable fitness monitor with other electronic devices. The tool lets the wearer program the Fitbit to limit his TV time if he doesn't meet his fitness goals. Thousands of such scenarios are possible if SmartThings takes off, Hawkinson says.